7 Reasons Why Scifi Book Series Outstay Their Welcomes
posted on May 15, 2008 - View this thread

Gary Snyder, sublime and seminal poet of ecological awareness and activism [YouTube link], Zen appreciation of "ordinary mind" and American speech, shamanistic intimacy with the natural world, and surviving member of the Beat Generation (West Coast posse) at age 78, has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly poetry prize. "Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself," said Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman. "His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation.” Previous recipients of the Lilly prize include Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, and W.S. Merwin. [Previously mentioned here.]
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

Oxford Muse - "a foundation to stimulate courage and invention in personal, professional and cultural life". Browse the self-potraits (autobiographies), participate in projects, go universal, or just learn what the Muse is.
posted on May 6, 2008 - View this thread

A Million Penguins, the wiki novel mentioned previously on MeFi, is complete, and a research paper about it has been released.
posted on May 5, 2008 - View this thread

An extraordinary piece of magazine writing by Chris Jones. Jones tells the story of how the body of Sergeant Joe Montgomery makes its way from a Baghdad suburb to its final resting place in a grave in Indiana. It's one of the finest pieces of journalism that I've read in years. It’s extremely moving without being saccharine or twee. It’s a military story, but utterly without jingoism or indictment. And it’s wonderfully observed. If I taught a first-year creative writing course, I'd make this required reading.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

Being Raymond Carver Often referred to as the American Chekhov, Raymond Carver was a master of the American short story.
posted on Apr 30, 2008 - View this thread

50 best cult books from The Telegraph.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

Remember Philip M. Parker, the much-reviled "author" whose system churns out ultra-long-tail books on ultra-niche topics? Well, here's video of his software, in action. (Via)
posted on Apr 14, 2008 - View this thread

Stuff Nobody Likes. A short list is provided for your convenience. [via mefi projects]
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Home taping downloading is killing music authorship. The Society of Authors warns that authors will simply stop writing if they aren't compensated for piracy of their work (as unlikely as that seems). Perhaps they should follow the example of Jim Griffin, newly hired at Warner Music to persuade broadband providers to attach a $5 per month surcharge for the benefit of the major labels, in exchange for halting the lawsuits that have thus far been their mainstay weapon against piracy.
posted on Apr 2, 2008 - View this thread

Edinburgh author Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society The Culture and it's oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty awful covers. That could change: Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order.
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

Speaking of speeches, David Eggers delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (mefi consensus) it's a great example of nervous energy microphilanthropy, social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection, machines of loving grace. [previously]
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

Brilliant Women: The Blue Stocking Circle was a group of intellectuals with a strong desire to discuss, analyze, and examine the social, political, and educational problems of the day Mostly female intellectuals, but they included many prominent men as well. They assembled in the London homes of literary hostesses such as Elizabeth Montagu, Frances Boscawen and Elizabeth Vesey in the 1750s form the nucleus of the exhibition. .... At first, all the party-goers were nicknamed blues, but from the 1770s, the "bluestocking" tag was applied to the women members in particular. By the time of Montagu's death in 1800, any female intellectual might be labelled a bluestocking, whether or not she could claim a link to the original circle.
posted on Mar 21, 2008 - View this thread

An essay by Bill Lawrence, creator of "Scrubs," on why he writes. It's part of a series: "Why We Write."
posted on Mar 16, 2008 - View this thread

Warrior Writers express themselves using Combat Paper made from their old military uniforms. FAQ. Videos. An associated RI art show has its opening reception tonight. Sunday night there’s a program as well at The Beat Museum in San Francisco.
posted on Mar 6, 2008 - View this thread

London's 30 Most Erotic Writers, 50 Crime Writers To Read Before You Die
posted on Mar 1, 2008 - View this thread

Word Into Image: Writers on Screenwriting {youtube}
William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) (1 2 3)
Robert Towne (Chinatown) (1 2 3)
Carl Foreman (High Noon) (1 2 3)
Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) (1 2 3)
Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman) (1 2 3)
Eleanor Perry (The Swimmer) (1 2 3)
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Time Magazine's 25 Most Important Films On Race
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Six word memoirs: too short for
posted on Feb 6, 2008 - View this thread

10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online.
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

It's round robin, user generated, choose-your-own-adventure style, web 2.0 fiction. My productivity is now permanently crippled. The cbc gives some background, if you care about that sort of thing.
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. A few interesting choices here... the 'novelist's poet' at #1 seems fair enough, but this one, this one and this one?
posted on Jan 7, 2008 - View this thread

Small is Beautiful - The best new journals. (via Guardian / Observer) selected by Stephanie Merritt. "Published out of tiny offices or even editors' apartments, funded by grants, donations or founders' savings, distributed by direct subscription or in selected independent bookshops, paying contributors little or nothing at all, these magazines have nevertheless attracted such eminent writers as to give them an international reputation far beyond their limited circulation."
posted on Dec 30, 2007 - View this thread

Editor wars are some of the most divisive debates among programmers and writers. These days, the battles are between proponents of IDEs like NetBeans, Eclipse, and the like as often as they are between proponents of vi and Emacs, the traditional battlegrounds. That fight hasn't ended, of course. The support of the vi camp has largely solidified behind Vim, the largest and most feature rich (or bloated, if you like nvi) variant, and GNU Emacs has essentially vanquished its internecine rival. Are you a traditionalist? You can find an argument if you really want to. Of course, a lot of people now vote for third parties. There are candidates for the ignorant, for the masochistic, and the insane. Some people are more comfortable with familiar interfaces. Still others are obsessed. [Previously]
posted on Dec 22, 2007 - View this thread

Pages Unbound is a portal for serialized web novels, similar to web comic portals such as Buzz Comix and Top Web Comics, if not nearly as fancy. It is a new project by Tales of MU author Alexandra Erin. Note: Tales of MU and some of the novels found on Pages Unbound may be NSFW, as they contain explicit material of various sorts. MU, specifically, is concerned with LGBT issues and racism in a fantasy setting.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

Eclipse is a free on-line archive focusing on digital facsimiles of the most radical small-press writing from the last quarter century.
posted on Dec 15, 2007 - View this thread

Norman Mailer has posthumously won this year's Literary Review Bad Sex Award for his novel on the early life of Hitler, The Castle in the Forest. He was up against some stiff competition but Norman managed to rise to the occasion (sorry). Safe for work, but you might feel a bit dirty in the morning.
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

Symmetry. Shakespeare. Islamic medicine. Creative writing challenges. Four podcast series from University of Warwick.
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - View this thread

What would you think if at the next family gathering your uncle came up to you and said: "Shot, I got a great idea for a magazine. People are sick to death of reading authors responding to the news, reacting to ideas in the zietgiest. People want old writing. We will get a bunch of writing from the past (if its out of copyright, so much the better) group it by concept and sell it for $15 bucks an issue." Would you think its a good idea? What if your uncle was Lewis Lapham? Welcome to Lapham's Quarterly. Perhaps the only non-zombie related journal that "enlists the counsel of the dead."
posted on Nov 15, 2007 - View this thread

"Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.

Every Sunday Dan Barry writes about America in his This Land column for the New York Times.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

The Minor History of Giant Spheres is an illustrated timeline of, well, giant spheres, including the spherical republic of KugelMugel and the great Darwin Twineball. Also online is the Minor History of Miniature Writing, and the related timeline of timelines [prev.].
posted on Nov 5, 2007 - View this thread

National Novel Writing Month (seen before) starts Nov. 1. The goal: complete a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, Nov. 30. If you'd like to start, or are otherwise working on a novel, Sean Lindsay and others would like you to please stop.
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - View this thread

Read Print. Online books, poems and short stories.
posted on Oct 29, 2007 - View this thread

Is the net good for writers? "Now the web — and its democratizing impact — has spread for over a decade. Over a billion people can deliver their text to a very broad public. But what does it mean for writers and writing? What does it mean for those who specialize in writing well?"
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

"Humanity will wither and die. It’s inevitable now..." It's a work of fiction, or so one would hope. I humbly submit for your perusal if not approval, Humanity’s Final Message to Those Who Would Come After by Jeff Harrell. "It’s not hard to understand why. The big picture is scary. The big picture is that we’re all dying. Every last one of us."
posted on Oct 7, 2007 - View this thread

'These are a few of my least favorite things.' Melvin Jules Bukiet shares his thoughts on some contemporary writers, some of whom call the borough of Brooklyn home. Writers with names like Foer, Sebold and Eggers, among others. His thoughts are mostly negative. [via]
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - View this thread

How to write Consistently Boring Scientific Literature.

1. Avoid Focus
   There are many exceptions in ecology. The author has summarized them in four books.
   -Jens Borum, ecologist

Writer's Links. Write better, or at the very least, more authentically, with this list of hundreds of resources for writers of all shades. For example, writing a jazz age screenplay? This guide to 1920's slang will be handy. Need help getting your procedural legal drama accurate? Try the Jurisdictionary. Enjoy tormenting your readers? This list of Tom Swifties will do the trick nicely.
posted on Sep 9, 2007 - View this thread

Plotbot is a web-based collaborative screenwriting application where you can write a screenplay with as many or as few people as you like. Adopting the wiki approach to screenwriting, each element is editable by any member of a project. You can also comment on, delete or restore any element. For all of the "filmic storytellers" on MeFi.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

You should read these three stories by Amy Hempel. (Oh, and maybe listen to her read, here.) While you're at it, read some of these idiosyncratic but beautifully-written stories by grammarian Gary Lutz.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

Translating poetry is really really hard.
posted on Jul 21, 2007 - View this thread

365 Portraits, 365 audio pieces, 365 speculative fiction pieces, 365 plays. All because one a day is good for the soul.
posted on Jul 16, 2007 - View this thread

Writers on Writing: Interviews with Paul Bowles, David Markson, and Harry Mathews.
posted on Jul 2, 2007 - View this thread

Here's the background of one of the nastiest divorce/custody/dead baby stories you're ever likely to run across. Alan Rodgers is a horror writer. This is his wikipedia entry, and this is his blog/forum at sff.net. He was originally married to Amy Stout, and together they had three children, two girls and a boy. After he tried to kill Amy Stout, she left him and married -- Me, Dan Moran. I'm the handsome dude in the eyepatch, if you click through to my profile. Together Alan and Amy #2 had a baby: Anthony Rodgers. Who died under interesting circumstances. A tragedy, I believe Alan Rodgers has called it, and by "tragedy" I suspect he means, "Thank God I wasn't prosecuted for negligent homicide." Or worse.
posted on Jun 14, 2007 - View this thread

FBI 101 -- "Essentials for Writers," an "exciting and informative" interactive workshop for writers being offered to members of my union -- the Writers Guild of America, East - by the FBI Office of Public Affairs and FBI New York. ... -- Very interesting account of a workshop the FBI puts on for writers in NY. What's in it for the FBI? ...The only question we have for you is 'Will it show us in a good light?'" ...
posted on Jun 9, 2007 - View this thread

After an abysmal, embarrasing attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.
posted on May 30, 2007 - View this thread

A grand allegorical account of the past four decades of human history - or something, is of interest mostly to those of us over forty, but anybody can use the help of The Amazing Dostoevsky machine (new and improved!), to get through Crime and Punishment. Great literature not your thing? Try one woman's elusive search for a marketable, filthy domain name, or check how long you've been on this planet. I'm up to 20284, and counting ...

It's all part of the quirky (insane?) Bonkworld. There's bound to be something here to "feast your sense organs"
posted on May 23, 2007 - View this thread

Written Chinese may be older than we thought. Chinese archaeologists think that anicent cliff wall carvings may may take the history of Chinese characters back to 7,000 to 8,000 years ago.
posted on May 18, 2007 - View this thread

A 360 degree view in 71 photos of Will Self's writing room. Damn, that's a lot of post-its. (related)
posted on Apr 30, 2007 - View this thread

How to build your very own balsawood crow, the poetry of Dennis Beerpint, Little Severin the Mystic Badger, plus lobster diagrams and of course the Binnacle of the Week await you at Hooting Yard. Celebrated in song and story, Hooting Yard (also a radio show and podcast) is the home of Frank Key, author of such works as Sydney the Bat is Awarded the Order of Lenin and A Complete and Utter History of Norwich.
posted on Apr 12, 2007 - View this thread